Chechen refugees return home from Georgia (AP) Updated: 2005-12-07 14:29
Russian authorities took a planeload of Chechen refugees from the former
Soviet republic of Georgia back home Tuesday.
Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry flew 125 refugees to Makhachkala in
the southern Russian province of Dagestan, where they will be taken by bus to
Chechnya, said Alexander Rostovtsev, an official with the migration service.
The refugees were among thousands of Chechens who fled to Georgia's rugged
Pankisi Gorge across the border with Chechnya.
Some of the women, accompanied by children, wept as they stepped off the
plane and turned away from the waiting television cameras.
"I am very glad to be home. It is better at home, although it was not bad
there," said one woman who gave her name as Madina.
Bayan Karsanova, 50, said she had left Grozny in 1999 after her apartment was
destroyed.
Chechen refugees are seen in Makhachkala
airport in the southern Russian province of Dagestan, Tuesday, Dec. 6,
2005, while returning back to Chechnya.[AP] | In Georgia she complained that conditions were difficult as the refugees
subsisted on government handouts and could not work to earn their living.
"I am glad I am here, I hope it will be better at home," she said.
The Chechens' presence in the gorge badly strained Russia's relations with
Georgia for years since the second war in Chechnya began in 1999. Russian
officials claimed that Pankisi was infested with rebels and accused Georgian
authorities of failing to eradicate them.
Georgia launched an operation in 2003 to search the gorge for suspected
militants, but Moscow called the operation largely useless.
Smaller groups of refugees previously have returned from the gorge, and
thousands others came back to Chechnya from refugee camps in Russia's republic
of Ingushetia that borders Chechnya to the west.
The Russian authorities have encouraged the refugees' return in a bid to show
that Chechnya was returning to normal and offered compensation for homes lost in
the war.
The compensation was only offered in Chechnya, and that encouraged many
refugees to return despite concerns over continuing violence, rampant abductions
and miserable conditions in the region.
Russian security officials had carefully screened Chechen refugees willing to
return for links to rebels, Idigov said.
"Those who aren't coming back have their hands stained in blood," said Sultan
Idigov, the head of the Moscow-backed Chechen administration's refugee
department.
He said the refugees would be given temporary accommodation in
Grozny.
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